Missouri MMJ campaign sues state for ballot spot

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A campaign attempting to legalize medical cannabis in Missouri announced that it is suing the state for disqualifying thousands of signatures the group submitted to get its proposal on the November ballot.

Although the secretary of state had until today to rule on whether or not the initiative would make the ballot, the MMJ campaign pre-empted it with a legal challenge on Monday, according to the Associated Press.

New Approach Missouri, which is behind the campaign, is hoping to force officials to include invalidated signatures from one of the state’s six congressional districts, a strategic move that it said in a press release has worked for numerous other campaigns in the past.

In that one district, New Approach fell short by roughly 2,200 signatures of the 32,337 needed. In total, the campaign submitted more than 260,000 signatures in May.

New Approach said in a press release it believes the signatures were incorrectly invalidated due to “overworked staff and temporary employees,” and that clerical errors shouldn’t keep voters from weighing in on whether to legalize MMJ.

Missouri is the third 2016 marijuana-related legalization initiative to head to court. Maine was the first and Michigan the second. The Michigan case is still pending, while the Maine case was resolved and the legalization question was placed on the ballot.